PR Week Features Blue Engine + JDA Partners on Oval Office Address

01.09.19

Blue Engine + JDA’s Trevor Francis and Kevin Lewis were recently featured in PR Week’s roundup of expert strategists from across the political spectrum reacting to President Trump’s first primetime address to the nation from the Oval Office:

Trevor Francis, partner, Blue Engine/JDA Frontline
Former communications director at the Republican National Committee
Previous presidents used Oval Office addresses to unite the nation during times of history, war, tragedy and mourning. President Trump chose the forum to persuade Americans to adopt a point of view he’s been arguing since the first day of his campaign. Time will tell if President Trump did that with his speech last night. Regardless, the president should see the value in using more traditional trappings of the presidency like this to communicate his message. Both he and his policy agenda would be far better served with more prime-time speeches and fewer early morning tweet storms.

Kevin Lewis, senior communications strategist, Blue Engine/JDA Frontline 
Former spokesperson for President Barack Obama
An Oval Office address is typically an opportunity for a president to share their message and vision for the country to overcome a major challenge. Trump demonstrated a gross misuse of the forum. The speech diminished the integrity and use of the venue to rally the country around a common cause. It lacked inspiration, fresh ideas or solutions, and stoked a message of falsehoods, divisiveness, and fear. Constant diversions and lack of facts have, unfortunately, become the story for this White House. So much so that major news outlets focused on pre-fact checking, live fact checking, and post-fact checking coverage of Trump’s remarks, which is evidence of his lack of a responsible narrative.

See the full recap here.